the association between the serum sodium level and the severity of complications in liver cirrhosis

hyponatremia is a frequent complication of advanced liver cirrhosis, which is related to an impairment in the renal capacity to eliminate solute-free water that causes a retention of water that is disproportionate to the retention of sodium, thus causing a reduction in serum sodium concentration and hypo-osmolality.Hyponatremia in liver cirrhosis is currently defined as a reduction in serum sodium ≤130 meq/L. Nevertheless, even patients with a mild reduction in serum sodium concentration should be considered a high-risk population because of their more severe ascites and greater frequency of major complications of cirrhosis compared with patients with normal serum sodium concentration.In recent years, hyponatremia has attracted interest as a possible prognostic factor for liver cirrhosis. To date, no Egyptian studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between hyponatremia and liver cirrhosis complications. We conducted this study to assess the prevalence of hyponatremia in cirrhotic paients presented with complication of liver cirrhosis and to examine whether serum sodium levels associate with the occurence and severity of these complications.A total number of 200 cirrhotic patients who were admitted to our medical intensive care unit due to liver cirrhosis complications in the period from June 2010 to January 2011, these complications included ascites, hepatic encephalopathy, hepatic hydrothorax, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, hepatorenal syndrome, esophageal varices, gastric varices, variceal bleeding.All subjects of study were subjected to complete history taking, full clinical examination, routine investigations including complete blood picture.